Weight Training Tips and Articles

Proper Squat Form

  The squat is quite possibly the most important weight training exercise you can do to build overall muscle strength and size throughout your body. While squats are considered by many to be a great exercise for the quadriceps and hamstrings, they’ll also help you gain mucscle just about everywhere else as well. When you squat you’ll get a big testosterone boost that will help you gain more overall muscle size. If you do high rep squats you’ll be forced to breathe heavily, which will increase your lung capacity and help your upper body look bigger. Doing squats while you weight train will also affect the muscles of the lower and upper back.

  To avoid injury and get the most out of them, it’s important to learn proper squat form. You’ll want the barbell you’re squatting to be placed on your trapezius muscles - not on the back of your neck. It may take some experimentation to find the best spot to place the barbell when you squat and when you do you may not even need to put a pad on the bar - especially if you have developed traps.

  When it comes to squatting you need to arch your lower back, not bend it, as you lower into a squat rep. Get your behind as far behind you as possible and stop when your upper thighs are parellel to the floor. Then use the muscles of the quadriceps, hamstrings, and hips to squat the weight up. You can squat deeper if you want, but this depends a lot on how flexible your ankles and other lower body joints are.

  Where you place your feet when you squat depends on how tall you are and whether you’re weight training in more of a bodybuilding style or more of a powerlifting style. Either way, you need to concentrate on using your hips and not your knees as you lower into a squat rep. Putting to much stress on your knees when you squat isn’t good for them.

  Once you get your squat form down you should be able to build a lot of size and power from it and get the gains in overall muscularity you’re looking for.

Pre Exhaustion Weight Training For The Chest

  While the chest is one of the most popular muscle groups to weight train, there are many lifters, particularly those who are tall and have longer arms, who can’t seem to get a good pump from bench pressing. If you have long arms you’ll likely be using the triceps a lot while you bench and consequently won’t get the pump you need for more muscle growth in the pectorals. One great weight training tip to remedy this situation is to use pre exhaustion for the chest.

  To use the pre exhaustion weight training technique you do a superset of an isolation exercise for a large muscle group followed immediately by a compound exercise for that same muscle. To pre exhaust your pecs during a chest workout you should try a few supersets of dumbbell or machine flyes followed by bench or incline presses. You’ll directly target the chest with the flyes, which will put you in a position where the chest is already somewhat spent while you bench press and is forced to work harder. This will give you that pump that you haven’t been able to get and will help you build up your chest. If you just can’t seem to get your pecs pumped up from doing normal chest exercises you should give pre-exhaustion a try. It may be just what you need.

Building Bigger Biceps With High Intensity Weight Training

  The vast majority of men who are into weight training want to build bigger biceps. While the biceps aren’t the largest muscle group by any means, they are very easy to show off and many women love them. If you concentrate on intense biceps workouts you can get the arm size you’re looking for.

  One great technique to use for any biceps exercise is to get a few extra “cheat” reps when you’re doing a set of curls after you’ve done as many with good form as possible. Once you get to the point where can’t do another rep with good form bend your back a bit and straighten it to get the weight up. When you have the weight at the top part of a rep lower it as slowly as possible. Doing this allows you to take advantage of the negative part of a repitition when you’re doing sets of biceps exercises. This should give you a great pump in the bis and give you a better chance at more muscle growth in the arms. You can use cheat reps on pretty much any biceps exercise.

  Another great way to add some high intensity weight training into your biceps workout is to do some drop sets. To do drop sets for biceps do a set of curls and when you get to failure drop the weight and do more reps. You can drop the weight a few times if you want to get a great burn in the biceps. Barbell, dumbbell, cable, preacher, or concentration curls will all work well for drop sets. Drop sets are best used as a finisher to a biceps workout.